


The Things She Carries

by killingg_eve



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26716654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingg_eve/pseuds/killingg_eve
Summary: Villanelle and Eve are moving. Eve finds something tucked away in the closet that brings up questions.--More softness, more hurt/comfort, more 3x05 references... For all you softies 🥺🤧
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 19
Kudos: 103





	The Things She Carries

They needed to move.

They needed to disassemble their life and put it back together again—somewhere safer, somewhere further from where everything happened.

Villanelle was prone to nightmares. She would toss back and forth while murmuring “Ee . . .Ee . . .,” and she would eventually find a way (even in a subconscious state) to draw it out in full and jolt herself awake:

“Eve!”

She would cry out, and her lover would turn towards her and pull her close. She would hold Villanelle and search her face for tears. When there were tears, she would roll her thumb over her cheeks until no dampness remained. When there were none—that was worse, for it meant that she was too panicked to be distressed in that way. Then, she would only be gasping for air—her chest heaving—and she needed the closeness as much as she needed soothing whispers of “I’m here,” or “It’s over,” or “I’ve got you.”

So, they needed to move. To start anew.

Most of their apartment fit (although somewhat snugly) into thirteen boxes. Only thirteen. Eve lost most of what she had at the house with Niko

_(a blue-dotted mug;_

_a pet chicken;_

_the only suitcase she hadn’t lost—well, she did lose it, but it was sent back to her;_

_a kitchen knife;_

_the fridge magnets to spell poems with;_

_a nice, sturdy wooden table)_ ,

and Villanelle moved so frequently that she hardly took any of her luxuries with her. Most of the things she collected (while operating as an assassin) could be replaced. The only things she kept and moved were her clothes.

~~Thirteen boxes~~. Thirteen boxes and eight bags of clothes. And a bubble-wrap lined box of luxury handbags.

//

Eve finds Villanelle in the living room. She is laying on her back on the hardwood floor. The nearby kitchen smells like bleach. Beads of sweat scatter her forehead.

“Ville?” Eve calls.

Villanelle opens her eyes and finds Eve’s. “I’m just taking a little break. I am almost done.” She can’t help but smile a bit, given that she and Eve will behold a new future: something they dreamt about for two years, but only recently came to fruition.

“I can help! Do you want me to clean the bathrooms?”

Eve had offered to help, from the start, but Villanelle insisted that she would take care of all of the packing and cleaning. It was the chivalry in her—some deep-set need to take care of Eve and allow her to live well.

“I cleaned them, already.”

Eve raises her eyebrows. “How about mopping?”

“I mopped everything.”

“I can pack the kitchenware.”

“Eve, it’s in that box,” she says, pointing at a large, rectangular box near the door.

Eve comes closer to Villanelle and sits on the floor beside her.

“Well, what can I do, then? What’s left?” she asks, stroking at the cheek of her exhausted girlfriend.

Villanelle leans into the touch as she recalls, “All that’s left are my clothes. And god, they are the _worst_. I won’t put you through that. Why do those bags get so heavy when you put them into a box?”

“I’ll go work on those, then,” Eve states, simply.

Villanelle’s eyes go wide and she’s about to say something, but Eve puts a finger over her mouth.

“And I’ll be extremely careful with them,” she teases, although she means it.

Villanelle grabs her wrist. “You’re the best, Eve.” And she pulls Eve’s hand towards her so she can kiss the side of her hand.

“No, you’re the best. Thank you for doing everything.” Eve kisses her.

//

It’s late, now, and Eve organized the clothes into the eight boxes. She hopes that the suits will be okay, given that the box is a little bit short for them. They curl under—it’s almost painful to look at.

Eve finds the three-piece gray men’s suit, fondly remembering what happened on the bus, a couple of years ago. She hopes that it wasn’t dry-cleaned recently. She pulls it to her face and hums, practically laughs, at the shadow of strong perfume that echoes off of its collar.

That was the last thing, all the way in the back of the walk-in closet—except—Eve sees denim.

Denim? On Villanelle?

She tugs at it, having to press her face into the shoe rack to reach it.

It’s a denim jumpsuit with patchy details and paint splatters. All denim, all blue and silver. And it’s from the 70s? No, 80s.

Was it from a mission? Villanelle got rid of her disguises—the wigs, the work uniforms. She didn’t like being reminded of her past. So why would she keep something that is so unlike her? And why didn’t she ever wear it, if she cared to keep it?

“Villanelle?” Eve calls into the bedroom.

Villanelle’s hair is still wet from the shower, and she is watching TV in her pajamas. She is tired, but never too tired for Eve.

“Yes, Eve?” Villanelle calls, eyes glued to the TV.

“Why have I never seen you in this?” Eve walks out of the closet, holding the jumpsuit in front of her on its hanger.

Villanelle’s mouth drops with a rushed exhale.

“Where is this from? I used to see these all the time in the 80s,” Eve chuckles. “I had one—well, without this silver stuff. Do you want to keep it?”

Villanelle sits on her hands to keep herself in her seat.

“Yes, Eve. I want to keep it.”

“There’s a side of you I clearly don’t know,” Eve teases, facing the piece back towards herself and running a hand over its collar.

"Eve, I don’t want to talk about this, anymore. Please just put it in the box.” Villanelle is frozen and she stares at the garment, taking careful breaths.

“I mean, it’s cute! I definitely think it’s cute. I just didn’t think it was very _you_ , you know?”

“Eve!” Villanelle can’t contain herself and bolts across the room, pulling the garment from Eve’s hands. “It’s mine. It’s mine! That’s all that matters!”

Her emotions get the best of her, and she rushes out of the room. She locks herself in the guest bedroom and drops to her knees. She stares at the garment and relishes every paint splatter and patch with her hand, then pulls it close to see if it still smells like Russia, or if . . . if maybe it will smell of her mother’s shampoo.

It only smells like denim.

She finds herself lost to the moment and slumps down onto the floor, pulling her knees in and burying her face into the denim jumpsuit. Some steady tears drip onto the vibrant, blue wash and darken it—navy. But soon, she finds herself heaving and sobbing into it, and she can’t close her eyes without seeing the fire or smelling its smoke.

She longs to tell Eve that sometimes, that’s what the dreams are about.

_[Mama calls her a monster. Villanelle turns to a mirror. In the reflection, her eyes are hollow, black voids. When she looks back towards Mama, Mama is on the floor and her nightgown is on fire.]_

She feels guilty for hiding this paramount truth from Eve, but each day that passes makes it more difficult to bring up. She’s terrified that her mother will stalk her sleeping thoughts, no matter where she moves. Villanelle blocks herself from pondering this, simply wanting to believe that things will be better when she and Eve leave London. She could be happy. She could feel safe and serene for the first time.

She worries _more_ that Eve would distrust her. If she knew that Anna _and_ Mama are dead, what would Eve think of her? Would she be abandoned, again? Is this her last chance to keep the affection of the person she cares about? She doesn’t believe there would be any others, if she messed this up.

She hears knocking on the door. It’s too soon. _God_ , it’s too soon.

“Villanelle?” Eve calls.

“Eve,” Villanelle only whispers, her head still fallen against the garment.

_Eve, don’t come in here. Eve, don’t ask me what happened. Eve, don’t ask me where it came from._

Eve crouches against the door. She can hear sobbing on the other side, and lowering herself brings her closer to the sound.

“Ville. You can keep it. We can put it in the box? I’m sorry.” Eve only hopes the sound will hear her, as she is speaking almost too quietly.

“I’m sorry, Eve,” is what Villanelle chokes out.

“You didn’t do anything wrong! I’m sorry I offended you. I really meant it when I said it’s cute.” Eve wonders if her words are enough—not just now, but oftentimes, actually.

“No . . . Eve, I’m sorry.” Villanelle turns her head away from the door. She is sure she will be left alone, soon.

“Villanelle, would you be willing to open the door? To look at my face? We can talk . . .” She feels worse and worse, with every passing moment that Villanelle is choking on tears, all because of her.

“Eve, you will leave me!” Villanelle suddenly cries out.

“Ville, you want me to leave you?” Eve’s eyes sting with tears.

“No, Eve! You will _want_ to leave me.”

“Oksana, . . .” she hopes she’s made a good choice, “I will not want to leave you. I won’t leave you.” Her hand brushes across the wood of the door tenderly.

“You don’t know that.” Villanelle pulls her knees closer. The only person she has is herself, but at times like this, she wishes she could abandon herself, too.

Eve is careful, now. She wants to trust herself to say the right things, but she doesn’t know for certain. “You’ll never know what I really think unless you try. If there’s a story behind this jumpsuit, . . . maybe you can try to tell me. Maybe what you think I’ll say isn’t _really_ what I would say. Do you trust me?”

“I don’t know, Eve! I can’t take it back. What if you hate me?”

“Villanelle, I have been with you through so much. You ki—” she sighs, “You killed my best friend. And I didn’t hate you, I only chased you. And now I love you. Do you think you could try?” Eve presses her forehead to the door, like a prayer.

A long silence follows. It’s a giveaway that Villanelle is preparing to speak.

Villanelle’s breathing slows to jagged inhales. Her eyes burn and she urges herself to break the words out of their cage in one try. There is no room for missteps. Eve will already be horrified enough, if she understands what is being said.

She turns her head towards the door. She closes her eyes.

_“I went to Russia.”_

She already feels the wind is being knocked out of her.

Another inhale.

_“I saw my Mama.”_

The tears turn to a steady waterfall.

_“She gave me this.”_

She looks at it, again, as it sits in her lap, with both love and hatred.

_“She was bad.”_

She chokes on her breath.

_“I . . ._

_killed . . ._

_her.”_

Her head finds its way to her knees again, and she is mourning.

Eve is horrified by the sound; not just sobbing, but crying out. Weeping; true grieving. The way her voice tangles itself in the sobbing breaths. The most agony she has ever witnessed from a person—let alone the woman she adores most.

Eve jams a hairpin into the doorknob to unlock it. She’s been holding it the entire time, but she didn’t want to use it unless the situation became dire. She followed a gut feeling that things would escalate, mostly because Villanelle controls her reactions so well, these days, that pulling the jumpsuit from Eve’s hands was a sign that things were awry.

Villanelle hardly registers the sound of the doorknob clicking open, nor the feeling of hands swooping around her knees and her back to pull her close to the warmth of Eve’s body.

Eve’s hand travels up to Villanelle’s head, and Eve tucks Villanelle’s face under her chin, where Villanelle cries into her chest.

Eve says what she always says. “I’m here.”

Eve’s eyes well with tears, and she adjusts her grip on Villanelle, pressing Villanelle’s shoulder and head closer to herself. She wonders why she is the one who was entrusted with healing Villanelle and caring for her. She wonders if what she gives can ever be enough, or if someone else would do better.

Some time passes before Villanelle’s cries slow to a quieter stream of tears. She feels the warmth of Eve’s chest, where her face is pressed into it. She hears Eve’s vibrant, slow, wonderful heartbeat. She smells her. The earthy, sweet smell of her skin and a drop of perfume on her neck—one that Villanelle bought her for her birthday.

“Eve,” Villanelle finally whispers. Her voice is weak. “Don’t you hate me?” She looks up towards Eve’s eyes.

Eve meets her gaze. “No,” she says firmly. “I love you. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” She kisses Villanelle’s cheek, noticing how both of them close their eyes at the same time.

“What I did was horrible. Unforgivable. Even Konstantin—”

“Konstantin is smart in a lot of ways, but maybe that wasn’t one of them.”

“Eve, I know I shouldn’t have done it.” Villanelle is shocked by the idea that maybe Eve supports her actions. She hopes that’s not what Eve means.

“I also know that you probably shouldn’t have done it,” Eve starts, “but I know you well enough to know that there was a reason.”

Villanelle looks down at her knees. She feels like she should explain everything, but she doesn’t know how to start. She doesn’t know which parts of Mama were the worst—her memory is built up of tiny, bad moments that lead up to the orphanage, and she doesn’t know how to explain that the overall picture is horrible, even if some of the small moments could be forgiven.

Eve sees Villanelle fall silent, lost to pondering. She knows Villanelle thought it was a question.

Eve says, “You don’t have to tell me why. I just believe you, that there was a reason. Or many reasons.” Eve smooths Villanelle’s hair behind her ear. She presses the backs of her fingers to Villanelle’s wet face.

Villanelle exhales a sigh of relief and looks back up to Eve’s eyes with tiredness. Glossiness. Exhaustion. An overall impression that she is softening.

“One day, I will tell you everything. I just can’t, right now.”

Eve feels the weight of that promise. The idea that Villanelle feels that she deserves to know is something else, entirely. Eve knows she’s not entitled to the safehouse of Villanelle’s memories. She will keep her secrets safe, though, only using them to form a better image of who Villanelle is and where she came from—something she’s pondered since the existence of the assassin was only a theory in her mind—and she will use the discoveries to ensure that Villanelle is never hurt the same way twice.

“Baby. We’re gonna move. We will have all the time in the world. You can tell me as much or as little as you want.” Eve strokes the rest of the tear stains. Villanelle’s face is becoming dry, again.

Villanelle smiles weakly. She sees Eve above her, full of light and love. She’s never been held like this, never had her face caressed—not by anyone except Eve. She never tires of the feeling of being held, being tended to. Eve’s eyes are soft, and she wants to search them for every corner of warmth they hold.

“Okay?” Eve asks, wanting a nod from Villanelle, who is only looking up at her with palpable admiration.

Villanelle only has it within herself to whisper.

“Yes, Eve.

Please.

I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this. I had this idea while I was moving. I was leaving my childhood room, and it stirred the image of Villanelle huddling herself around the jumpsuit and crying. This came out even more angsty than I intended, which I was happy about. I enjoyed playing with the formatting and breaking some rules.
> 
> I'm really itching to write a long fic, again. If you have any suggestions to jog my ideas, please feel free to comment or message me on Twitter/Tumblr (killingg_eve and killingg-eve, respectively).
> 
> 💙💙💙 Sending warmth to you all.


End file.
